It won’t be long now until the gallery jets off to the Hamptons for the areas seminal art fair.

Now in its seventh successful year, ArtHamptons has established itself as the “must attend” art buying and social event of the Hamptons at the magnificent Sculpture Fields of Nova’s Ark.

Every year, the East End community comes together to celebrate the Hamptons’ long history as a haven for the creation and patronage of art.

George Thornton Art will be joining galleries from around the world.

Running from 10th-13th July 2014

The Gallery will closed between 5th July – 17th July whilst we show our works.
If you have any queries or need to get in touch during that time, please email and I will do my utmost to get back to you.

With news that house prices are once again rising out of control, that they need regulating and that a new bubble is forming, should we be concerned about the art market?

In this particular case what I mean by the art market is the very top end. The end reserved only to the top 1% of the world’s population. Just last month the New York branch of Christies held an auction that took almost 745 million dollars (Approximately £450 million sterling). Making it the highest grossing auction ever!

In the past such highs, such records have always come before a fall and it may be worth keeping an eye open for signs of a fall. Like most economic trends the art market is very much cyclical seeing drops fall in the 1990’s the 1970’s and during the Great Depression at the end of the 1920’s when many established Victorian and Edwardian artists whose art were breaking the records of their time crashed enormously, inflated initially by the types of auction we saw at Christies last week

Marc Quinn’s, sculptor of Kate Moss outside Christie’s New York which sold for $1.3million

The art market seems to have survived the latest crash, buoyed by investors from emerging markets in the Middle East, China and the newly wealthy looking to build collections. Another factor in all this seems to be a growing trend to guarantee the art coming to auctions, it transpires that 40 of the 72 lots on offer last week had already in theory been sold.

These guarantees cement high prices for the works of art pre-sale and prevent those works (and the artist) failing to sell looking weak in the eyes of the market. If the sale goes over the guarantee then the piece is sold to the highest bidder while the party who placed the guarantee gets a cut of the sale. This practice although not new is becoming increasingly common and threatens to artificially market prices. On the other hand, it also protects investment and does stave off market crashes and benefits us all across the entire art world. This practice is really no different to other measures imposed on the housing market, the banks and other sectors to try and ward off financial hardship.

Despite the warning I gave earlier, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of these records or market highs just yet. The art market having survived the latest economic downturn relatively unscathed appears even more appealing to those looking to invest.

Here at George Thornton Art we may not quite be selling our works to the 1% of society (yet), but a number of our artists, such as Kate Brinkworth and Laurie Williamson are already selling through auction houses. As in all areas, the artists we sell are driven by the fashions coming out of the top end of the market and the gallery thrives on a new breed of art fair, where buyers reflect and mirror the trends established at these types of events. Hopefully the art we deal in the gallery today will be tomorrows masters.

The Gallery is excited to announce a new partnership with ‘The Storage Bed’. Artworks by some of our amazing artists will be featured on their walls and we think its a perfect match.

It’ll be great to show our artists work in an arena that gives some contextual feeling to the pieces and is the perfect platform from which to introduce the gallery to people who may not otherwise have known about us.

Here at the gallery we only display the finest quality pieces, which have been painstakingly created to the highest quality. In this sense both the art on show and the beds on offer compliment the other beautifully, making this venture a perfect match for both companies.

“The Storage Bed” company based in Calverton, Nottingham design and produce high quality storage beds. Set up in 2007 by its founder David Norman, the company has gone from strength to strength and we are very happy to be working with another local business.The companies London Studio is open weekly and can be visited on an appointment only basis.